


time, as it stands

by parenthetic (renaissance)



Series: drarry drabbles [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Dark, Drarry Discord Writers Corner Drabble Challenge, Hogwarts Sixth Year, M/M, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-24
Updated: 2018-07-24
Packaged: 2019-06-15 15:48:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15416325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renaissance/pseuds/parenthetic
Summary: Sectumsempra—for enemies.





	time, as it stands

**Author's Note:**

> for elise's prompt: "i'm not sorry" - 369 words exactly as per wordcounter.net

In the future, Harry is in love with Draco Malfoy.

The future is not a bad place to be. Harry’s scar doesn’t throb, he doesn’t have to fight, most nights he sleeps through without waking. When he does wake, he has Draco. Against all odds and common sense they have found something in one another and they have found that it works. In the future, Harry is content.

Except—he keeps going back.

It happens at the worst of times. He’s in a crowd of people laughing and eating and he takes the tongs to the sausages on the barbecue and he blinks his eyes and then he’s standing in the familiar corridors of Hogwarts.

Usually he arrives during the Battle; this time he’s almost a year early for the war. He’s outside the bathroom. He presses his hand to the doorknob, lingers a moment on the feeling of the cool brass against his skin. There are sobs coming from behind the door. Harry knows what he’ll find. He wants to delay this for as long as he can. But then he’s in the bathroom—he doesn’t remember the door opening—and there’s Draco, in tears, and then they’re duelling, the same spells that have flown through the air every time Harry has been here.

_Sectumsempra—for enemies._

Harry lives this moment as he has lived it so many times before. He watches as Draco blooms Gryffindor red, rivulets of blood running down his uniform and carving rivers across the landscape of the bathroom floor, a layer of water over grimy tiles. Fabric and blood, blood and water, water splashing as Harry runs across to Draco, as Moaning Myrtle cries bloody murder.

Next time, Harry tells himself, as every time, he will change the future. Until then, he cannot bring his present self to rob his past self of the moment that made Draco Malfoy human in his eyes. He makes Draco bleed again and again and he doesn’t even let himself say _sorry_. He certainly hadn’t managed to say it the first time he was here.

Soon he’ll be back in the future again, and everything will be fine. For now—no remorse.

**Author's Note:**

> i wanted to talk about my rationale in the end notes rather than the beginning because otherwise i'd be giving things away. when i saw "i'm not sorry," my very first thought was _sectumsempra_ —for some reason, my brain was wired for darkfic that day, and i wanted to explore one of my favourite drarry moments, and also one of the darker things that harry's done throughout the series. the framing of the scene came after, though not by long. i got the song lyric "feel no shame 'cause time's no chain" stuck in my head and i was like, oh shit, these are the perfect "no remorse" vibes, what if this was time travel? (the lyric is from "hey now" by oasis, as is the line i eventually settled on for the title.) i also owe a debt of gratitude to "slaughterhouse 5," which i read recently, and which inspired the direction i took this drabble. is it really time travel? i don't know. you decide. just be thankful i didn't actually make the first line, "Listen—Harry Potter is coming unstuck in time." (though i was tempted.)
> 
> i have had some exceptionally kind comments on this drabble in the anonymous phase and believe me when i say it's made my week so much brighter. i know that i'm personally very proud of this. thank you for reading!!


End file.
